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Don Was' Excellent Adventure: On his new gig as president of Blue Note Records and his old job as Rolling Stones collaborator
Wednesday, June 5, 2013 PURPLECLOVER.com Don Was, the multi-Grammy award-winning producer, a close collaborator of the Rolling Stones whose band Was/Not Was still plays the occasional gig; and who last year became president of legendary Jazz label Blue Note Records, is easy to spot in a crowd, or a police lineup for that matter, because he’s the tall guy with the dreadlocks wearing the hat and shades and the flipflops. I’ve known Don for more than a decade (our wives… -
Online Courses: The Perpetual Student
It seems like only yesterday that my friend Teri was telling me that if she could do college all over again she would take different courses: literature, poetry and just a greater variety of subjects. Well, I’ve got some good news: turns out that you can now take an amazing variety of courses, many of them offered by universities that most of us couldn’t get into today, such as Harvard, Oxford and Stanford, many of them free. What’s the hitch?… -
"Doc" The Life and Fictions of Harold Humes
Watching wasted genius, a life gone wrong, is compelling and poignant, but with "Doc" airing December 9, at 10PM on PBS' Independent Lens (Check your local listings for actual times), we feel much more like guests doing a post-mortem on a private party where the drinks may have been dosed. "Doc" is a documentary by Immy Humes about her father, the novelist and cultural figure, Harold L. "Doc" Humes, who was by many measures a success: he was a founder… -
Bela & The Benz
Hatschek Bela. The very sound of my great-grandfather's name brings a smile to my face. In Hungarian, last names go first, so although Bela was his first name, he has always been Hatschek Bela to me -- all one name -- a legendary figure in our family, a celebrated forebear about whom my mother and grandmother told stories.He was famous for being the first man in Hungary to own a car, and my grandmother kept a clipping from the Royal… -
Summer and the start of school
In one of his most famous works, the French poet Francois Villon asked: "Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan? (But where are the snows of yesteryear?)." I might ask the same about where this summer went. It seems like just last week my daughter was getting out of class, and now she's about to start up again. This year, summer just slipped through my fingers. Americans are often chided for their inability to go on vacation -- a problem I've… -
www.nextbook.org
Nextbook www.nextbook.org -
Books
"The Bones" by Seth Greenland (Bloomsbury) Shop at Amazon.com! http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect-home?site=amazon&tag=tommywood-20 "And The Word Was" by Bruce Bauman (Other Press) Shop at Amazon.com! http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect-home?site=amazon&tag=tommywood-20 -
About Tommywood
Tommywood is a column that explores the cultural landscape of Los Angeles through a personal lens, taking the reader everywhere from a tour of Frank Gehry’s Santa Monica, to Robert Evan’s bed, with a morning spent in Traffic school and lunch with French philosopher Bernard Henri-Levy, with time for a game of mah-jong, and a remembrance of when Hungarians ruled Hollywood. Tom Teicholz is a film producer in Los Angeles. Everywhere else, he’s an author and journalist who has written… -
Cleaning House
Several months after my mother died, I had to clean out her apartment in New York. The apartment had sold, the co-op board had approved the new buyers, the closing was imminent. The apartment had to be delivered empty. This was the apartment I had grown up in, where my parents had lived, where my father had died more than seven years ago. My parents were from the Old World, and the apartment reflected that. The rooms were dark, filled… -
The Heroes of Jewish Comedy
On Monday, July 7, Comedy Central will premiere the first of a six-part series called, "Heroes of Jewish Comedy." Unfortunately, the series suffers for being a clip job not up to its subject. Less documentary and more comedy would help. Produced in Britain, the show already seems dated (the series has high hopes for NBC’s "The In-Laws," a show that has already been canceled). The narration, read by iconic TV Semite Judd Hirsch, is equally underwhelming. As my mind wandered…